


Haunted by the Ghost Of You

by jillvalentined



Series: That Would Be Too Cruel | A collection of Resident Evil Oneshots [2]
Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse), Resident Evil - All Media Types
Genre: Actually Chris gets a little dialogue, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Compliant, Carlos and Jill are basically endgame, Character Death, Character Study, Chris and Jill are platonic, Chris and Nemesis are only mentions, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Post-Canon, Post-Resident Evil 3, Post-Resident Evil 5, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Resident Evil 5, Romance, Time Skips, Trauma, Will be writing the flashbacks from this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:55:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23628814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jillvalentined/pseuds/jillvalentined
Summary: Grief is one of the hardest things to face. Carlos never thought he'd want more than anything to go back to Raccoon City, to relive that horrible night in 1998 but when Jill is killed on a mission, he'd do anything to get her back even if it means walking through hell all over again. It has been three years and Carlos has come to notice reasoning with ghosts was impossible.
Relationships: Carlos Oliveira/Jill Valentine
Series: That Would Be Too Cruel | A collection of Resident Evil Oneshots [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1694266
Comments: 9
Kudos: 63





	Haunted by the Ghost Of You

**Author's Note:**

> this is just a little thank you to anyone who might’ve read my last jill/carlos fic! i plan to write a ton more of these, especially given the barren tags and my love for these too. the reception to the first one i had written (feel free to go check it out) was really surprising i’ve never written for this fandom before so i was so surprised to see such positive feedback! again this is a lot of character study but i’m still trying to find my writing style as i haven’t written in quite a while. definitely typos uH it's five am but please leave comments if you feel nice enough to do so i read them all and find them the sweetest thing! i do take requests (for claire/leon and jill/carlos only sorry) but i won’t accept everything either way feel free to send em to my tumblr frazerchloe! 
> 
> this lil fic thing was inspired by the little knowledge i have about resident evil 5 and the song the night we met by lord huron which is one of my all time favorite songs please go listen to it! (also please be kind these characters are not ones i have experience with i have only played the two recent remakes and know a bit about one and six a lot of this is my own interpretation from what i’ve played and read)

The night Carlos and Jill had met back in 1998 standing among the flames of a burning Raccoon City, Carlos had known there was something special about her. The former STARS officer spoke with determination, with vengeance for her lost team and the home that was reduced to ash before her own eyes. A reflection of himself pooled in the shorter brunette, always holding that intricately carved gun of hers too tight, allowing gun metal to dig into soft flesh, delicate fingers adorning chipped nail polish placed over the trigger with a particular itch. Jill Valentine was a force to be reckoned with, Carlos was convinced she could raise heavens with courage like that or maybe it was stupidity, either way Tyrell did not waste time pointing the similarities between the two. _Self sacrificial_ , _unmoving_ , destined for something _better_ than this. 

Carlos and the platoon he belonged to had been in large numbers. A little less than one hundred were shipped into the small city in oversized black trucks marked with the red and white Umbrella logo. Their goal had been to help contain the infection, stop the spread before it wiped out the entire city --- little had he known, they were _lambs sent to slaughter_. Men that the mercenary had come to treat as family he had lacked in a prior life were bitten and executed before the infection could take over. Nicholai put countless men out of commission before the virus had a chance to seep into their veins, take over with a ferocity that none of them had ever seen prior. Only handfuls of soldiers were left, dropping like flies and the severity of it all became far more clear while time drained. He was never supposed to make it out of Raccoon City alive. 

Finding Jill had been on accident, he was shuffling panicked civilians out of the streets --- anyone deemed not infected sent to the underground station to join the many that would join the last remaining members of the platoon in the first route of escape. The loud crash had caught him off guard, seeing the tail end of the old car sticking out of the fire and a woman drag herself out through the glass coughing like the wind had been knocked out of her. Half of him rationed that she was insane, the other half couldn’t help but be impressed --- Jill Valentine was not like anyone he had ever encountered before. If it wasn’t for her Carlos knows he would have only ended up in another pile of burning bodies spread across the city or worse. The thought of becoming one of those things, once innocent people screeching like wild animals and groaning in pain, it was all too much. 

That horrifying night stained into his memory, reoccuring in the worst nightmares was one of realization. Greed could tear a person apart and spit them out a monster, nothing better than the hulking leather clad mass that stalked Jill throughout the night with the sole person of ending her life. Umbrella was supposed to be something better, something good for Carlos to find purpose in like many of the other men that had been pulled out of bad situations with promise. Well, weren’t they all fucking stupid. All of them were buried in makeshift graves, turned or left to rot with bullets through the brain. He found himself on the wrong side, yet again, and Jill still poured the last bits of trust she had left into him. 

An enormous amount of guilt came with the term sole survivors. Over one hundred thousand people took residence in Raccoon City and they could only manage to escape with their own lives. Survival in itself had been an accomplishment, Jill should have been killed handfuls of times throughout the course of the incident. Carlos would not mistake her impulsive heroics for something stupid, if Jill hadn’t run into the sewers diverting the train his last remaining members of his platoon and the suvivors would’ve been wiped out by Nemesis to get to her. They would not have made it without one another.

If he held a sense of optimism maybe he could’ve reassured Jill that some people probably made it out alive, any friends she had, family. But he knows better than to sell her a lie, she did not deserve it. Jill was not blessed with enough ignorance to believe any familiar name could have escaped prior to the explosion and hell --- if they had made it the whole forty eight hours they were buried in the rumble that was once home. Everything was gone like the snap of two fingers. Back in July, when Irons stripped her badge and disbanded STARS following the trauma of the Spencer Mansion she had already lost too much. All of that hard work, the years it took to prove herself as the sole woman on the team until Rebecca came along, it had all been for nothing. It was what led to her choice to ditch Raccoon City for good, counting off the day anxiously till she could pack up her car and drive to hell knows where but god had a shitty sense of humor. Cherished pictures of her parents, worn down polaroids of herself and the team, any accolades or awards given through STARS, all her research, her team. It all burned, reduced to ash and rock under the explosion that could have claimed them if she had not shot at Nicholai any sooner. 

And the handful of days following, they’d spent in a shit motel with peeling wallpaper and carpet that carried the stench of mold and unforgivable stains, Carlos expected to wake up with Jill gone one morning. Each time the sun poured through dusted curtains, Carlos would crack his eyes open and rub the exhaustion from his face always feigning surprise at the sight of the former officer passed out beside him. Dark blunt locks surrounded her face while she slept, chest rising and falling with slow breaths --- he could have sworn she looked at peace and hell, after everything they’d been through she deserved a good rest. Gradually, a routine fell upon them while she tried to contact the two living members left of STARS. Chris, he’d been told went completely radio silent and Jill had sufficed with Barry picking them up, offering a cabin upstate in suffice of a safe house till she knew her next move. They should have parted ways then but she asked if he wanted to stay, without another word pleading that he did. She couldn’t take down Umbrella alone and Carlos had no intention of abandoning her. They were never able to part ways. 

An unlikely relationship had bloomed between them. Carlos and Jill always knew it was the sole positive to come out of that night. And despite how desperately the two had tried to forget about it, whether it was burying deep seated trauma within one another or in a bottle of whiskey they could not forget that it had at least brought them together. He’d crack jokes and she’d pretend to be annoyed, giving him dizzying kisses in the midst of conversation and letting him hold her throughout relapsed nightmares. Prior to him Jill never desired a committed relationship, too focused on her job and refusing to take a simple no for an answer. If she’d been that passive years prior, she never would have climbed the ranks of STARS with ease. It was a boys club, even if all of them but two were dead now. Chris could never understood but it was the sole reason she had rejected him, needing a solid reputation and unable to gain respect if everyone coined her as Redfield’s girlfriend. It was better that way. After standing at the gates of hell, the pair found normalcy within one another but Jill was never able to rid the married to her job trait stuck within another world at times and following Chris to the ends of the earth if it meant ending Umbrella. Neither of them thought it’d be her end. 

The memories that cling to that day in 2006 are worse than the events of Raccoon City. Always reminding him of a loss more than failure. Carlos had suffered through an agonizing childhood with absent parents, raised by an aunt with the slightest hope that she could spare him of the trouble that life held. Guidance had never been enough and no matter the honor held in his heart, the road he went down was a bad one. Umbrella was supposed to be his second chance, his new life that led him somewhere better --- one where he was not a child soldier on the wrong side of a violent war. It changed him, but so had Jill. He had been with people before her, plenty in fact always enjoying the company but could never find himself attached, the connection everyone spoke so fondly about that was until she had crashed a car into his life. She was his first real love, convinced she’d be his last too. 

Everything faded over time but she remained clear as day, stood in the doorway dropping her bag to bid him farewell. “It’s only temporary, I’ll be back in two maybe three weeks tops.” Jill promised, short brown locks tucked under a logoless baseball cap. "It's not a complicated mission."

Carlos shifted forward, strong hands on her hips and she grinned at his sincerity, finding it overdramatic at best. “Be careful, yeah? Don’t let Redfield get you into trouble.” His half assessed attempts to get her to stay had never succeeded, she was off to save the world while he was preoccupied with his own work. According to Redfield the BSAA never slept, Carlos thought the guy was _a little too intense_.

“ _Me_? _Trouble_? When am I ever in trouble?” Jill asks, quirking her head to the side knowing the answer was far too often. 

Dark brows lift in question, a smirk painted across his lips accompanied by a short laugh. “Do you want an alphabetical list? I’ll make a spreadsheet and everything.” 

Arms twist around his neck and pull him down for a brief kiss, hovering over his lips when she pulls back icy hues pouring into his soul. “I look forward to it, Oliveira.” 

And everything that followed had felt like a dream, a terrible dream he couldn’t wake himself from no matter how hard he tried. Radio silence had been the norm, that never shocked Carlos when she’d go a few days without answering him but days turned into weeks without notice. He still didn’t worry, expected to catch the click of the front door any moment and have the former officer toss her bag aside and fall into his arms like every time before. 

Except, three weeks and four days in a knock on the door revealed Chris Redfield rather than the fury filled brunette, who always returned with the distinct smell of gunpowder on her hands and some array of bandages. He knew what was coming before Chris spoke, watching his lips move and the words come out but heard nothing. Jill died along with Albert Wesker somewhere in Europe, tackled him out of a window and fell stories to her death --- they’d never found her body and that was the worst part. 

“Then she has to be alive somewhere!” He tried to reason with Chris, sorrow overcoming her partner’s features with a small shake of his head. “There’s no way she could have survived that, Carlos… Jill knew what she was doing, she knew the consequences.”

“She can’t be dead… _This is Jill we’re talking about._ ” He couldn’t give into grief, he knew that once he did there would be nothing left of her but memories. Jill Valentine would be reduced down to martyr and her things would lose meaning, he would lose her completely. 

But Jill had always been like a phoenix, rising from the ashes and coming back stronger. It was what kept them alive back in Raccoon City and it was the only thing giving him a semblance of hope. She couldn't be _gone_.

And so with a heavy heart, they buried her memory with an empty casket and a beautifully carved headstone. Flowers were placed carefully on the fresh dirt and Carlos couldn’t help but allow anger to overcome his grief. He’d hit walls till his knuckles turned bloody, drink away the pain and the ache in his chest but it never lasted. 

In the eight years they had spent by one anothers side, he never worried about losing her --- not after Raccoon City. They had been careful, safe from death’s grasp outside of haunting dreams and useless worries that it would come back for them. He never rationalized that he would lose her. Never thought he’d want to go back to the night the pair had met and relive it all over again if it meant touching her one last time. 

Jill was everywhere, but nowhere. Forcing her old lover to live with the ghost of her but withholding the ability to move on. If he concentrates too hard with only the quarter of a bottle left, he swears he can still hear her telling him to fuck off and laughing at terrible jokes. She lived in crumbled up photographs and the lingering smell of her perfume on the few articles of clothing left behind. Gradually, her side of the bed no longer held her scent or the warmth he sought out. She was bleeding from his memories until she would no longer exist. 

His sleepless nights are full of terror, Jill almost close enough to touch with tear filled eyes before fading into darkness. She whispers sweet nothings and her laughs are like music to his ears, but it is never real. Jill could never reach for him, gone quick as she came. What the hell was he supposed to do haunted by the ghost of her? 

Anger is often all he feels, unable to numb the sorrow enough with alcohol or in the beds of strange women he meets in bars to move on. His heart belonged to someone else. The monster-filled streets of the city grow comforting, a fondness resonating within them when they cross his mind and he hates himself for that. Carlos knows Jill would tell him it wasn’t worth the heart ache, not worth holding onto her if it only hurt. It was never that easy. 

It takes four years for Carlos to attempt to stop chasing ghosts, to learn to live in a **Jill Valentine-less world**. 

It’s December of 2009 when crashing in the kitchen wakes him in the middle of the night. Carlos is positive he isn’t still drunk, all the alcohol left his system hours prior and none of his friends had a key. The man rubs the exhaustion from his eyes, glancing over at the plastic alarm clock for the time before grabbing his gun slipped under Jill’s pillow as insurance. Glass crunches and something falls to the floor with a loud bang, but he has no idea what was going on. Had Umbrella finally decided to put him out of his misery, was some random person breaking in his apartment, at four in the morning. Floorboards creak and groan under his weight, holding his gun in a tight grasp he approaches the kitchen --- unable to pinpoint an intruder in the dark and flips on the light switch.

Words fumble before they can reach his tongue, whiskey hues falling upon a woman standing in the middle of the room brushing glass off of her tee shirt. Dark blue fabric adorning the BSAA logo on the chest is the first thing that is processed. The second is the familiarity of her, face belonging to a ghost he knows too well. Icy hues paired with sharp features that soften at the sight of him as the lights flicker the room to life. No, he had to be drunk or dreaming. _This couldn’t be right_ , he rationed. Was she real? Was she a clone sent by Umbrella to kill him? Everything about her is the same but too different to be a dream. Bleach blonde locks tied into a tight pony tail that did not match the pictures scattered around the apartment replaced the mousy brown he'd become adjusted too. The scars sat in a oval pattern upon her looked too new to be a figment of his imagination, _why would he see her like this_?

Lowering his gun with trembling hands, Carlos is speechless, unable to get anything but a simple word out. “ _Jill?_ ” Shock feigned across worn features, anxiety tightening his chest. He must have gone crazy, staring her ghost in the face after so long. 

“Sorry for breaking the window, I didn’t exactly have my key.”


End file.
